Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Labriola v. Pollard Group, Inc.


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus.  Sandstein  09:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Labriola v. Pollard Group, Inc.

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Irrelevant case {CSD-A7 Tkfy7cf (talk) 17:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Relevant, yes, notable, no. If someone can show me that the Labriola case has set a precedent that is being followed outside of the State of Washington I would reconsider.  However, this one turned upon the common law rule that a contract must be supported by consideration.  I have to admit that I phrased that one badly, as pointed out by others-- while it isn't uncommon for one state court to begin a trend that is noted by others, such as happened in the 1980s with comparative negligence, Labriola would not be binding in another jurisdiction. Mandsford 18:09, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Contract is purely a creature of state law, so requiring that a state contract law case set a precedent beyond its own state would put the vast majority of contract law case articles on Wikipedia in jeopardy! Verkhovensky (talk) 18:35, 16 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep This case is controlling precedent in the State of Washington, and its very governance by the classic common law is interesting when the case is understood as a unique intersection between common law and modern employment law. This article should clearly be expanded, but it obviously should not be deleted! Verkhovensky (talk) 18:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep To echo Verkhovensky's point, contract law is a creature of state common law, so conditioning the case's notability on a finding of its precedential value outside of Washington is unreasonable. The case is fairly recent, still good law, and, as pointed out above, represents an interesting -- nay, notable -- intersection of contract common law and modern employment law. The article should be expanded, not deleted. KnivesDon&#39;tHaveMyBack (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Response Verkhovensky has said nothing about this case that could not also be said of any other published decision rendered by an appellate court in the State of Washington. Every published decision is controlling precedent in the jurisdiction in which it is rendered, so that's not enough to demonstrate notability (one can produce evidence of notability and argue the "law" of Wikipedia, and, if neither can be found, one can argue what should happen as a matter of public policy).  Maybe someone wrote a law review article about it.  Maybe it's widely acknowledged in independent and reliable sources, though if it is, I've missed it.  I agree with one thing-- if someone wants the article kept, it should be expanded-- fast!  The ruling won't come down for at least a week, so it's not too late.  Mandsford 20:03, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Giving a one week time limit for the expansion of an otherwise valid article seems like an odd rule. And the assertion that a decision rendered by the Washington Court of Appeals has the same weight of authority as a decision rendered by the Washington Supreme Court represents a misunderstanding of civil procedure. Verkhovensky (talk) 21:37, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * On the rest of it, perhaps. On the last part, NO.  In the decision that you are writing about, the decisions cited from the Washington Appellate Reporter (Wash.App.) were all Court of Appeals decisions, and the Respondent's attorneys were relying upon Knight, Vale & Gregory v. McDaniel, 37 Wash.App. 366, 368, 680 P.2d 448 (1984) as the most persuasive authority.  In those instances where a Supreme Court has not previously addressed a legal question, the lower court decision is the published authority until overruled later.  It appears that this will probably end up kept, in which case you'll have more than the usual Wikipedia-week.  Best wishes.  Mandsford 00:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Verkhovensky is actually correct on this point. Court of Appeals decisions are not binding on other Courts of Appeals in the same state (unless you are in a state with a peculiar rule, like California). I am not sure what you are trying to indicate with the term "published authority", since that only denotes authority that is published in a reporter. And to say that the cases cited from the Washington Appellate Reporter are all Court of Appeals decisions is to state the obvious; the only cases published in the Appellate Reporter are appellate cases. Just because the Supreme Court has not spoken on a particular legal issue does not make the decisions on that point by a Court of Appeals equal in precedential value to an on point decision by the Supreme Court if there were one (i.e., they are not magically binding on other Courts of Appeals). Indeed, the case cites other Court of Appeals decisions as persuasive authority, not mandatory authority. KnivesDon&#39;tHaveMyBack (talk) 02:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Not every published decision is controlling precedent in the jurisdiction in which it is rendered. Judicial holdings can abrogated and reversed and overruled. That is not to say that cases which no longer have good law are not themselves notable; some such cases certainly have historical value. In any event, requiring evidence such as a law review article to substantiate the notability of a case erects a high standard indeed, and a standard uncharitable to the hardworking, contracting people of Washington who likely find this case important indeed. And corroboration by "independent and reliable sources" is an inapposite requirement in regards to a published judicial decision. KnivesDon&#39;tHaveMyBack (talk) 21:58, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * All Wikipedia articles are subject to that inapposite requirement I'm afraid. Mandsford 00:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think what Knives is saying is that because every published decision is obviously published, the entry in the reporter itself is sufficiently reliable. Also, the present article includes a cite from a casebook, so your requirement has been met. Verkhovensky (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

&Comment The argument is that its a precedent in a significant jurisdiction is not really adequate justification; it needs to be shown that this is a significant precedent, widely cited, or a controversial one in some manner. Without references to its impact, I do not see how the article can be justified. Looking for that in Google Scholar, which now does very nicely for this sort of question,  there are 56 citations.Most of them seem to be about attorney's fees,  the nature of a appeals court review, mitigating damages, and the requirements to justify a summary motion; only a few are about the main point of issue. This does not seem enough to justify the article. If however, a standard textbook refers to it as the authority on the main point at issue, that might lead to a different conclusion. May we have their wording in full, please.  DGG ( talk ) 00:16, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:20, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Being precedent within a jurisdiction is sufficiently notable. Heaven help us if we require extra-jurisdictional significance as a ground for notability for legal articles. There go quite a few FAs down the AfD scrapheap. Hopefully more can be written in this article. Crude searches uncover the prospect of some reasonably significant coverage of the case and its significance. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Nearly every single legal article in Wikipedia is a mess.  There isn't room for minor precedents in narrow areas of law in narrow jurisdictions. NB article is an orphan, and is exceedingly unlikely to be anything but. This is an unnotable decision indistinguishable from hundreds of others issued every year by state supreme courts. THF (talk) 01:07, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Firstly, there is no need to insult the hard work of all the folks dedicated to improving legal articles on Wikipedia. Secondly, I've added a note on how the Labriola case illustrates an unusual strict adherence to the common law pre-existing duty rule in the interests of justice.  A link to Labriola would go nicely in the article on the pre-existing duty rule as an example of such common law adherence, especially since such has largely fallen out of favor today (and I will add such a mention later when I have more time).  In the meantime, deletion simply seems to hasty.  And arguing that the room for improvement shown by most Wikipedia legal articles has nothing to do with whether or not there is "room" for an admittedly unusual but statewide precedent. Verkhovensky (talk) 02:09, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment On the point of "room": editing Wikipedia is not like the FCC's regulation of the broadcast industry -- scarcity is an inapposite rationale. "The Internet can hardly be considered a 'scarce' expressive commodity." Reno v. ACLU (US 1997) (my apologies for the severely lacking citation; this is after all only the discussion page). KnivesDon&#39;tHaveMyBack (talk) 02:23, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Labriola is no longer an orphan. Verkhovensky (talk) 03:50, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep for the reasons stated by Verkhovensky, Knives, and Mkativerata. PsychCat (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * While I'm still not clear as to what sets this Labriola case apart from any other court decision, Verkhovensky sees something that makes this more than a "run of the mill" case, and has put in a great deal of work into it so far. If it appeared that those of us who doubted the case's significance were unduly harsh, I can only say that nearly all articles about state court decisions are likely to get raked over the coals in the same manner as this one has been.  Mandsford 12:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep as an interesting legal precedent in an area of law that was once settled, but is now rapidly changing. Bearian (talk) 21:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.